So today I started to think of a piece of music for which I can place throughout my video interview. I believe that using a piece of music as ‘background noise’ can make the video seem more comfortable to watch and keep the content calm and positive.

First of all, I started to look for songs that had lyrics embedded into them, but then I suddenly realised that using lyrics could potentially jeopardise the viewers concentration on what the person on screen is explaining, therefore I started to look at instrumental versions of songs and/or pieces of music that had no lyrics to begin with. Initially these were the list of songs I thought would be appropriate for the background music of my video:

SHYER – London Grammar

HEARTBEATS – Jose Gonzalez

363N63 – King Krule

STILL – Daughter

FULL MOON – The Black Ghosts

I FORGET WHERE WE WERE – Ben Howard

WHITE BLANK PAGE – Mumford and Sons

THREE TREE TOWN – Ben Howard

BORDER LINE – King Krule

I picked these 9 songs because when going through my playlists on Spotify and eventually coming across these individual ones, they had a certain aspect to them that made me feel relaxed; and so this made me add them to my ‘potential background music’. Throughout the process of choosing, I found it difficult at times to find instrumental versions of the songs such as ‘THREE TREE TOWN’ and ‘FULL MOON’ so this immediately decreased my list as I couldn’t use a song with lyrics in.
Eventually I came to the conclusion that ‘BORDER LINE’ by King Krule would be a perfect theme tune for my artefact as my first thoughts when listening to it reminded me of a beach and sitting in the sunshine, thus keeping my mind tranquil. Although there is singing throughout, the first 22 seconds hold nothing more than an instrumental tune which suited perfectly! The tune kept a steady pace with an uplifting manner to it, and so this automatically drove my feelings into using this particular song.

From the 17th of January till the 27th of January I spent my time editing together my artefact.

To start off, I imported all 3 pieces of footage from my three peers to make sure they were all in the same area to start editing (to avoid complications). I then began to cut the three videos one by one in order to move the specific pieces into the designated question areas using the ‘Blade’ tool. Here is a screen-grab of a section in my video where they are being asked to state their full name, age, and gender. I enhanced the colour on each piece of video to make sure that the lighting was as natural and light as possible, and so also enhance the colour differences between the white background and the people present in each video.

I then began to try and incorporate my own individual style into my artefact. At the start of my video I wanted all 3 people to enter the frame at the same exact time to show unity between them all. Sir helped me to create this aspect by using laying the 3 sections of each video on top of each other, followed by transforming each clip to the size that I required (each clip being the size of 1/4 of the screen, each one cornered).

For my music, once I used ‘YouTube Convertor’ to download my specific piece of music into iTunes, I was then able to import it into the editing process of my video. Due to the main section of the song having lyrics embedded into it, I only required the start of the song as this was instrumental and fit perfectly as background noise for my artefact. I used the ‘Blade’ tool once again to cut the piece of music that i didn’t want. Also, I had to use the copy and paste tool to add more of the accurate piece of music throughout my video so it was continuous, as well as the ‘Fade’ tool in order for the pieces of music to flow into each other.

^ The dates above were the dates in which I filmed my 3 people involved in my interview ^

Throughout this filming process I made another change into the aspect of how many people I would be filming. As a first idea, I initially chose 3 males and 3 females to participate, but due to a few complications I then changed it to 2 males and 2 females to make the process easier and quicker to produce. However, after filming 3 of my peers I suddenly came to the conclusion that this would be the best amount of people to use. The reasons for this conclusion are: Due to the stereotypical view of women being more insecure of their physical appearance than men, I chose to use more females in my interview to help to portray this concept. Also, this tied in well to the process of asking males to participate in my interview. If I asked one of my peers to par take in it, they would refuse due to them
A) Not feeling comfortable answering the questions
B) Can’t be bothered
C) Don’t want to ’embarrass’ themselves

I believe that this could therefore give connotations of the male gender feeling that they cannot express their thoughts and feelings as much as women can.

Here are the three people I used: Kathleen Overend, Gianluca Cataldo, and Scarlett Maher. They are all in my year at school which I found appropriate due to the aspect of my project being about ‘teenagers’, and at the age of 16/17 this is found to be the peak of development in regards to the interior and exterior mind. Therefore, the answers being given were accurate to what a teenager may feel about these certain topics of conversation.

As I am the type of person who requires neatness and stability in the work I do, I have decided to think of ideas on how to structure my essay. From looking at previous Extended Project essays online, I have come up with an idea of categorising each paragraph to a specific aspect included in the media.

With this structure, it will help me to cover as much information and different areas as possible without missing some out. Some of these paragraphs will include: Magazines, Internet, Television, Models, etc!

I believe that having this essay structure will enable me to write fluently and cover as many aspects as possible in 1000 words.

Today (whilst trying to figure out different areas of primary research) I decided to find different stories and interviews given to by Victoria Secret models as I believe many young girls look up to these women as glamorous and the concept of ‘perfection’. The first thing I saw was a ‘diet plan’ to help the models maintain their underweight BMI and decreased body fattening appearances; which these diets could be seen on the internet for any individual to see and potentially repeat. I found this on a website (http://fluffy-to-fit.tumblr.com/vsmodeltips) that tells the readers a plan of dieting that the Victoria Secret models stick by in order to stay in shape. Here is what I found:

Lunch: You’ll nearly always see a Victoria secret model backstage sipping on a green smoothie! A green smoothie includes water and a range of leafy greens (spinach, lettuce, etc. The darker the veggie the more vitamin it holds, so imagine how much you’d be getting from a green smoothie!), a salad (raw, or slightly steamed) topped with chicken or turkey, fish (Such as tuna or salmon), or lean meat.

Snacks: Low-glycemic fruits like berries, cher­ries, pears, apples, kiwi; A good treat that Jason suggests to the models is having apple with a spoon of peanut but­ter, I personally suggest a nut mix like almonds, peanuts, cashews, You can buy this at Woolworths and other supermarkets it’s one of my favourites! (Make sure it’s salt and sugar-free); hum­mus with cucum­ber slices or celery, or a small por­tion of a left­over meal.

As you can see from this piece of information, the models eat no processed foods to help maintain their body weight. Although this is a delightful eating habit due to the well balanced nutritions and positive food types, eating a decreased amount is an unhealthy way of losing weight and should be done properly.

Today I started to think about my video artefact and how I was going to place all of the interviews together in order for the film to flow smoothly. As I thought about the possible individuals that could be involved, I came to the conclusion that finding 6 people to willingly put themselves forward and participate in my interview may be hard as most people are too shy or self preserved. Therefore, I have decided to ask only 4 people (2 males and 2 females) to participate as this will be less difficult for me to collect data and varied opinions of the both sexes. For both sets of males and females I will be using one pair of the mixed sexes who share roughly the same age (repeating for the final pair) as I believe using near enough the same ages will help me understand the different opinions and answers shown in regards to two people who have grown up in the same generation.

I am hoping that this new idea will engage my thoughts into the different sides and opinions of how the media has twisted our thoughts on how we perceive ourselves and others.

January 3rd 2016

Today I have decided to change my artefact in regards to the people involved. Due to my question being based around teenagers, I thought it would only be accurate to have people of the same/roughly the same age as me contributing because this way it will help to pin point the specific answers and opinions of my targeted audience in my question. I have chosen to keep the idea of 2 males and 2 females, however, these 4 participants will be around the ages of 16 and 17 because I believe this is the prior age in which people fully contribute to the media industry and take in information of things that interest them. From starting to create and develop my ideas in regards to my artefact, I have came to the conclusion that asking people of different age ranged can form a challenge as they are not in my school (thus creating a barrier of easiness to meet with them and video them), and also they may not be as willing to contribute because of their age or the simple thought of them being shown to a large amount of people on a screen on the day of our presentation evening. This curve in my project has made me realise that I should only focus on the mid/late teens in my school as it would be easier for me to collect data faster, and they will feel more confident telling some of their personal thoughts to me because they know me well and understand that I wouldn’t show anybody apart from the people necessary.